Aziz Ansari

Aziz Ansari was born in Columbia, South Carolina, to Indian immigrant parents and grew up in Bennettsville, a small town in the same state. He studied business at New York University and began doing stand-up in New York clubs while still a student.

He became known as Tom Haverford on the NBC comedy Parks and Recreation (2009 to 2015). He then created and starred in the Netflix series Master of None, which won him Emmy Awards for writing and a Golden Globe for acting.

Modern Romance (2015), written with the sociologist Eric Klinenberg, grew out of his stand-up material about dating by text message. The two ran focus groups in several cities and worked with researchers to study how smartphones and online dating have changed the way people meet, flirt and commit. The book argues that more choice has left many people less sure of their decisions. In 2018 an anonymous account of a date with him started a public debate about consent; he said he had believed the encounter was consensual.